The three thugs of the Rich Party – or was it the Poor Party – lay writhing on the ground. The one who had been hit on the chest got up, groaning. The sign of a palm was imprinted on his massive chest as on burnished brass. He went and helped the other two. Like a sad bunch of thieves, like crooks who had been set upon, like a defeated army of rogues, they leaned on one another, wailing, each twisted in the direction of their injury’s gravity. They staggered down the street, hobbling away from their vanquishers.

THREE

WHEN THE FIGHTERS left, the air of the street was charged with fear. It was late evening. The sound of a plate breaking, of two people quarrelling, made us suspicious. The heat and the glare restrained the movement of things arid I did not wander far from home that day because I feared that all over the world thugs with fire in their brains werepoundingoneanother in aweird deliriumof history.

Staying in that day taught me how long a hot afternoon could be, how the heat could slow time down. I sat on the cement platform arid listened to the flies. Flying ants were all over the place. Lizards ran up and down walls, sunning themselves, nodding. I went to buy some beans from an itinerant trader of cooked food. She had a constant companionship offlies.Andshehadthemostamazingsignstattooedtothe sides of her mouth. When she smiled the signs looked odd, but when she was serious they made her look beautiful. She sold me a few pennies’ worth of beans and offered to sell me Kokoro at a discount.

‘What is Kokoro?’ I asked.

‘They are the ants that feed off the beans.’

‘Ants?’

‘Yes. They are good for you. They make you brilliant and help you grow up fast.’

I bought some fried ants as well and went and sat in the shade. I ate the beans and the ants and drank some water. Then I got drowsy and slept outside our door. The sun burned on me and when Mum got back and woke me up I couldn’t see anything for almost a minute. I was quite blind and everything was composed of blue and red and yellow whorls. Mum led me into the room and made me lie down. When I woke it was evening. The blindness had given way to the world’s variety of colours. Mum had gone out.

Mum’s absence got me worried. I locked the door, hid the key under the threadbare doormat, and went looking for her. I went down the street and encountered our landlord. With a cold gaze and a contemptuous voice he asked if my parents were in.

‘No,’ I said.

‘When will they be back?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Tell them I am coming to see them tonight about my rent and another matter, you understand?’

I nodded. He hurried towards our compound. I went on. My stomach started to ache andIfelt surethefriedantswerecrawlingaroundinside.Suddenlyapowerfulstench invaded the air. Everywhere I turned the stench was there, unbearable, unavoidable. And then I saw the nightsoil man coming towards me. I didn’t want to offend him so I didn’t move or run. But I held my breath. He staggered and wobbled under the heavy weight. Hooded and masked in a filthy blue cloth, I saw his bulging eyes, and his fierce glare. He grunted, buckling, as he passed me. Feeling the full pressure of airlessness, I ran; and when I breathed I felt very ill. So did everyone else. Before I knew it I was near the bar. And outside, in front of the bar, talking in between covering their noses, were Madame Koto and Mum. I went back home. The smell stayed in the air and even when I shut the door it was still there.

After a while Mum came in. She looked very tired. She said Madame Koto had been asking after me. I told her the landlord’s message; she got very agitated.

‘The rent? We don’t have enough money. When did he say he was coming?’

‘Tonight.’

She sat still for a while. Then she went over to her basin of provisions, took out a tin box, and started counting her money. She counted it for a long time, with sweat breaking out on her forehead. When she finished she sat still again for a while. Then she unloosened one end of her wrapper and counted the money she had there. It got quite late. I lit another candle. Mum was quite oblivious of everything. She was still counting her money, calculating how much she needed for a fresh stock of provisions, how much profit she had made, when imperious knocks sounded on our door. Mum jumped up, spilling most of her money on the floor. She picked it up in a hurry and put it away before she said, with sweat on her eyelashes:

‘Azaro, see who is knocking.’

Iwent tothedoorandopenedit andthelandlordcamein,pushingmeintotheroom, openingthedoor wide, as if hewanted thewholeworld to hear what hehad to say. He had three other men with him. They were strangers. They were very big, with well-developed muscles, and the mad eyes of political thugs. They wore matching uniforms and they came into the room and stood, side by side, with legs planted wide, their backs against the wall. They folded their arms and looked at us with the sort of contempt reserved for insects.

The landlord looked round, saw the semi-broken window, and began, explosively, to rage. He was thoroughly incoherent and he only made sense when he calmed down a little and demanded that the window be repaired before his next visit. He moved dramatically up and down the room, reserving, as usual, his loudest voice and his most dramatic gestures for when he was nearest the door. The compound people had gathered outside and some of them were looking in. Waving his hands, whipping the voluminous folds of his agbada this way and that, he turned and said:

‘Is your husband not in?’

‘No.’

‘What about my rent?’

‘When he comes back he will give it to you.’

‘He didn’t leave it?’

‘No.’

Stridingas if hewereon stage, wavinghis hands angrily, thelandlord said:‘Why do I have to come and pester you for my rent, eh? When you wanted the roomyoucameandbeggedme.NowIhavetocomeandbegyouformy rent,eh?’

‘Things are hard,’ Mum said.

‘Things are hard for everybody. All the other tenants have paid. Why are you so different, eh?’

‘When my husband returns…’

‘He starts trouble.’

‘It’s not so.’

‘Your husband is a troublemaker.’

‘Not at all.’

‘He thinks he is strong.’

For the first time Mum acknowledged the presence of the three muscular men standing with their backs against the wall. She looked at them and they stared back at her without moving.

‘My husband is strong, but he is not a troublemaker,’ she said finally.

One of the three men laughed.

‘Shut up!’ the landlord barked.

The man’s laughter dwindled into a hollow cackle. The landlord sat on Dad’s chair and it wobbled precariously. He sat there, scrutinising us, as if deciding what to do next. Then he brought out a lobe of kola-nut from his pocket and began chewing. We were all silent. The candles twitched; shadows lengthened and shortened in the room. The three men looked gloomy and ghoulish, and the upward illumination, catching their faces, made their cheeks and eyes hollow.

‘So when is your husband returning?’

‘I don’t know.’

The landlord munched his kola-nut.

‘Well,’ he said, after a reasoned pause, ‘the other matter I have come about is simple. I do not like the way my own tenants have behaved towards my party. You people beat me up the other day. What have I done to you, eh?’

At this point he got up and resumed his melodramatic pacing. His hands flailed and his voice got louder at the door as if he were addressing an invisible audience.

‘I have told this to all my tenants. Anybody who wants to live in my house, under this roof that I built with my own hands, should vote for my party. Did you hear me?’

Mum did not nod. She stared grimly at the twitching candle.

‘It doesn’t matter if you answer or not. I have said what I have to say. If you have ears, listen. If you want to be my tenant, when the election comes you will go and vote for my party man.’